


dreams are nothing like they were meant to be

by tosca1390



Category: Psy-Changeling - Nalini Singh
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Regency, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-15
Updated: 2014-01-15
Packaged: 2018-01-08 19:39:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1136580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Hawke Snow, Earl of Northington, watches his ten-years-junior wife, Sienna Lauren, tilt her neck with grace as her beautiful fall of hair is pinned and twisted with elaboration expected of a countess, and wonders what it would be like to have her skin under his lips. </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>He is sure he will never know.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	dreams are nothing like they were meant to be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magisterequitum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/gifts).



> Complete and utter crack. 
> 
> For the lovely Jordan.

*

It is her hair that is his undoing. 

Though they have never shared a bed through the night, Hawke will come into his wife’s bedchamber in the mornings and keep her company as she readies for the day. It began early in their marriage, when they would go over the day’s calendar and their engagements. Now, he uses it as an opportunity to share details of his business, gain her advice. She is clever, his wife; he trusts her sense and judgement more than anyone else’s in his life. 

When he comes into her chamber, she is already always dressed for the day, but her ladies’ maid Evie takes her time dressing her hair, and why not. It is lush and radiant, the color of rubies at midnight. There are moments every day when he imagines plucking the pins from her coiffure and spilling it over his wide hands, taking it in sweeps around his wrist and holding her fast and gentle – 

But these are the daydreams of a twice-married, once-widowed man with a wife who loves him not. And who he cannot love. 

Hawke Snow, Earl of Northington, watches his ten-years-junior wife, Sienna Lauren, tilt her neck with grace as her beautiful fall of hair is pinned and twisted with elaboration expected of a countess, and wonders what it would be like to have her skin under his lips. 

He is sure he will never know.

*

The great love of Hawke’s life died when they were both twenty-two. 

Theresa, bright-eyed and kind, was a daughter of a neighboring baron; something of a low match for a man of his station. But they had grown up together, promised to each other early; and when they both turned eighteen, they married with purpose and joy. They were young but happy, Hawke is sure of it. No children as of yet, but he was certain they would come in time. They had so much time.

She died on a Tuesday, just weeks past her birthday. It was March, blustery and cold and violently snowy. The lung fever set in swiftly, and took her from him in the space of two weeks. At her last breaths she worried for him, wrung promises of future happiness and life from him; but how was he supposed to be happy with anyone else? 

His mother and father died just months later, a carriage accident in London on a rainy night their undoing. A widower, Hawke was left the Earl of Northington, entrenched in a mourning he couldn’t see a way out of. 

For years after Theresa’s death, Hawke avoided society, avoided London. Lord Riley Kincaid and the Duke of Ormonde, known to his close companions as Lucas Hunter, boyhood friends (and sometimes rivals, in men’s sports and games), were his only company. When they married, they brought their wives into his circle, and he took amusement and care from Mercy and Sascha as if they were his sisters. But Snow Manor remained empty of joy and of the touch and care of a mistress, and when he turns thirty, he knew he must remarry. 

Love had nothing to do with it. 

*

“She is charming,” Andrew Kincaid, a military man of great prowess and Riley’s younger brother, says to Hawke. 

Country dances are much more a relief to Hawke than the crush of people and attention in London. He likes hosting, filling Snow Manor with light and voices. He’s liked it even more for the last three months, since his well-timed, well-chosen marriage to Sienna Lauren. 

He watches her from his perch in the corner of the great hall, traces the shine of candlelight in her dark hair, listens for her laugh even halfway across the room. A hundred or so people in the room, and he has eyes only for her. Her gown this evening is a deep scarlet red, trimmed with lace at the bodice and a great complement to her gleaming skin. She is impossible to miss, drawing all the light in the room to her. 

It is a problem. He knows it to be so. But as long as he controls himself, as long as he keeps his center – 

It is a business partnership. He constructed it to be so, and she agreed. 

“She is indeed,” Hawke says at last, sliding an ice-cold look to Andrew. “And is quite off-limits.”

“Even for a dance?” Andrew says with a grin, eyes flashing. 

“From you, yes,” Hawke says curtly. 

Andrew slaps his shoulder and laughs. “You’re a damned fool for not keeping her at your side every minute. And if you won’t ask your wife to dance, I certainly shall.”

Hawke bristles as Andrew bows with a mischievous grin and begins his stride across the great hall. Perhaps Hawke is a fool. But there are only so many hurts a man can take in his life, and he has had his fair share. 

He has danced with his wife twice. Once at the Duke of Ormonde’s annual ball at his London home, one of the highlights of the season; the other at their engagement soiree; he remembers every moment of the waltzes. Lithe and graceful, Sienna is a lovely dancer; she fits into the circle of his arms as if she belongs there. It can’t be so; he’s had that once already in his life. But he savors the sensory memory of her gloved hand in his, of the bare curve of her shoulder, the sweet-spicy scent of her hair. The first time they had danced, she looked at him with clear pleasure and amusement; the second, it had been polite and gracious, but without her usual spark.

Their engagement hadn’t been the romantic or even affection event she had probably imagined for herself. But he is a kind husband and he needs her, if only to keep his head above the water in terms of estate management and their busy social calendar. She is the smartest woman he has ever met, and he knows he would be lost without her at his side, even after such a short time. 

And if his fingers curl into his palms, forming loose fists of frustration, as he watches Andrew lead her in a dance – well, it is his own fault. 

“You look put-out.”

Suppressing a groan, Hawke looks to his side. “Sascha, please.”

Sascha Hunter, the Duchess of Ormonde, smiles brilliantly at him in return. Her deep blue silk gown sets off her sleek dark hair, the bright sheen of her eyes. During the time in which Lucas had been courting her, Hawke had made a point of dancing with her and flirting with her endlessly, just to irritate him. Now that she is married to Lucas, she has become a dear friend. 

A dear, if slightly intrusive, friend. 

“You can’t keep your eyes off of her,” she says, her fan closed and tapping the palm of her hand. 

“You? Of course not,” he deflects winningly, his mouth curved. 

“Your _wife_ ,” she retorts, smacking his arm with her fan. 

“Does your husband know you’re over here flirting with me?” Hawke counters. 

Sascha laughs, a bright bell of a sound that warms Hawke’s middle. “I believe we all know I can only be charmed by one man.”

Hawke smiles, takes Sascha’s gloved hand and brings to it to his mouth. “You are a wonderful woman.”

“So is your wife,” she says dryly. “Perhaps you should dance with her.”

Bristling, he looks away, back out to the wide floor. Sienna is there, laughing with Andrew. The swirl of her red-and-black patterned skirt, touched with lace, draws his eye over and over. “You know what our marriage is.”

“Certainly. That hardly means I have to agree with it,” she says testily. “God forbid you be happy.”

“You’d blaspheme in my presence?” he says with a slight smile. 

“I’d do worse if it would knock some sense into you,” she mutters, eyes flashing with emotion. “You two could honestly be happy together if you would just let yourself.”

He doesn’t reply, memories of the past torturing his tongue into silence. Sighing, she pats his arm. “I see Lady Bridgerton. Do think about it, Hawke. We were so pleased when you married her, and it just seems like it would be such a sad waste of both of your lives, to continue onwards like this,” she says before gliding away, all grace and gentleness. 

Hawke turns on his heel and tracks a path to his private study for a good strong drink. He can’t watch his wife dance with others any longer. 

*

Sienna is extremely intelligent, has a head for facts and figures that Hawke cannot begin to fathom. 

Every week, she brings him the account books for him to look over. It is perfunctory, as he is an intelligent man but has little patience for bookkeeping and accounting, but he likes the gesture. She perches on the edge of his desk and watches as he flips through the pages in her neat and even script, her eyes dark and fixed upon him relentlessly. Her hair, perfect and smooth and pinned up effortlessly, shines in the morning sunlight, like rubies on silk. 

“Everything is fine,” she says to him, linking her slim fingers together in her lap. “In fact, the harvest seems to have been slightly more productive than last year. Your tenants should be set for the winter, barring any sort of weather disaster.”

“Our tenants,” he corrects her unthinkingly, eyes flickering up to her. 

Something in the line of her mouth tightens for just a moment. “Yes. Our tenants,” she repeats. There is a curl of something wry in her voice. 

Hawke glances away, out the window of his study. The leaves are turning orange and red with the coming of autumn, the winds cool. Trees stretch out in front of him, dotting the crisp green, slightly browning lawn. He has never been one to manicure the estate grounds, unlike other magnates of his acquaintance. He likes the sensation of nature growing as it will, in tune with the land. 

“Would you like to take a walk with me?” he asks after a moment, looking back at her. 

Sienna blinks, her mouth parting as in surprise. “I – well – “

He waits, setting the account books down. It is rare when they spend this much time together. Their days have fallen into strict patterns since their marriage; apart from the visits of his to her in the mornings as her hair is dressed, they will breakfast together and then part for the day. He usually has business with his tenants and his groundskeeper and estate manager, as well as letters to read and reply to; occasionally he will join Lucas and Riley on a hunt or a ride through the countryside, if the day allows. Sienna’s days, he knows little of; she has correspondence to attend to, and manages the household in concert with Mrs. Rivers, and then, of course, bookkeeping. But apart from visits with Sascha and Mercy from time to time, he doesn’t quite know how she spends her leisure time. 

He wants to know, which should be a warning enough for him. But today, with warm autumn sunlight touching her hair and the gold undertones of her skin, he doesn’t care. 

“If you’d like, certainly,” she replies at last. “I will fetch my coat.”

They meet in the front hall and step into the brisk October air, her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow. He doesn’t think they have walked as such since they were courting – though he’s sure she would not call their relationship a courtship in traditional terms. He certainly does not. 

“This is my favorite time of year to be here,” he says after a long spell of quiet. With just the crunch of gravel under their heels, and the slow and even rhythm of her breathing, he can hear too many of the conflicting thoughts rolling around in his head. 

“That makes sense,” she says, turning them off the gravel path and through the close thicket of trees. 

He looks at her curiously. “Does it?”

She glances up, a small smile playing at her lips. Her beauty perhaps isn’t traditional, but he cannot be but struck at how utterly lovely she is, with her wide mouth and dark eyes, and hair that shines for miles. He looks at her every day and wonders how she could have settled for an existence like this, such as it is. Partnership and autonomy is admirable in a marriage, but this woman was born for love. 

He wishes he could give it to her. 

“The seasons’ change is visceral here,” she says as they step through the browning grass. Autumn leaves crunch under their toes. The spice and slight smoke of the season settles in his nose, an echo of her more concentrated, saturated scent. “You’ve allowed nature to thrive here, and it makes the shifts all the more beautiful. Anyone would be a fool to not appreciate it.”

Impulsively he covers her hand with his, a strange sort of realization crowning his mind. “You like it here.”

“I do,” she says without hesitation or coyness. Sienna is a woman without artifice. “It is a perfect home and estate.”

She has taken over the direction of their walk, deep into the forests surrounding the manor. Hawke hasn’t spent this much time on his grounds in years. He and Theresa would play hide and seek in these woods, when they were younger. After she died, his enjoyment of them seemed to evaporate. 

“There is so much joy in the natural growth and habitats you’ve allowed to flourish here,” Sienna continues. “In my walks, I’ve seen rabbit dens and songbirds, and young fauns with their mothers. You’ve provided a refuge for many creatures when other lords would have landscaped their grounds into nothing.”

His lungs fill with the scent of her. The feel of his bare hand over her soft skin is intoxicating. He wonders if she is so soft everywhere. Even more than when she is the sparkle of the hall, the hostess with kindness and aplomb, he finds himself unable to look away from her here in the elemental wild of his grounds. 

“Your walks?” he asks after a moment, voice low. 

She peers at him, tilting her head curiously. “Well, what do you think I do all day?” she asks acerbically. 

“I wouldn’t presume to know.”

“No, why would you?” she murmurs, and it cuts him right to the bone. His hand flinches where it rests overtop hers. “I walk the grounds quite often.”

“Alone?” 

“Surely I don’t have to fear for my safety on my husband’s property,” she retorts. “Yes, alone.”

Wetting his lips, he bows his head slightly. “You are quite familiar with the grounds then.”

“Yes. They’re quite stimulating. It’s the favorite part of my day,” she says, voice slightly wistful. 

His stomach clenches in absolute misery, all of his own making. 

“I never thought the day would come where someone knew my lands better than I did,” he says at last. 

She looks at him carefully. The sunlight slants and speckles through the leafy limbs above them, the light catching in her dark eyes like licks of flame, utterly arresting. “I’m sure I don’t,” she says after a moment. 

“That you care so deeply is – it is wonderful,” he says honestly. 

Sienna makes a small noise of agreement, something like a hum. She tilts her bonnet-less head up to the patterns of sunshine coming through the trees. “The land and the tenants are my responsibility now just as much as yours, Hawke. I made a promise to be a partner,” she says quietly. 

He stops them in a small clearing, reaching up to take her chin in hand, tipping her face back towards his. Her eyes, so dark and vivid, go quite wide. He has never touched her like this, apart from the kiss to seal their vows. That kiss in all its innocence is seared into his memory. 

“Are you happy?” he asks her, his heart in his throat. He didn’t think he would care so much, and yet. 

She blinks, taking his question as it is was a hit to her middle. The breath leaves her quite abruptly; he can hear the rush of it in the quiet cool air. 

Slowly, she reaches up and takes his hand from her chin. A glare, hard and cold, surfaces in her gaze. 

“Are you?” she counters, voice quite low. 

The question knocks him off-center. He drops his hands from her entirely, watches her speechlessly. 

The smile that twists her mouth is ruthless, grim. “You yourself told me there was no love in you,” she says evenly. “You wanted a partner, not a wife. You have one. What does happiness have to do with it?”

Still, he cannot speak. She is masterful in her height, all cold-as-ice anger through a steely gaze and the set lines of her face. Even suffused with ire, she is beautiful. 

“If you please, my lord, I will finish my turn alone. There are matters of business you need to attend to, I am sure,” she says coolly before turning. 

“Sienna –“ he calls, reaching out for her wrist. 

She rips away from him, the green-sprigged skirts of her day dress whirling with the movement. “I have done all you asked,” she says, voice thin. “I married you, I am your partner in business and leadership, I am your hostess and I am your countess. And it is a full life. But happy? _Happy_? You should know better than I of the emptiness we both live within.”

“I told you when I proposed what I required. You could have said no,” he grounds out through his teeth. 

The smile on her lips curves deadly. “Have I complained? Have I protested? Have I swept into your bedchambers and demanded consummation?” she counters. “Have I?”

Hawke swallows with difficulty. “No.”

“No,” she repeats. “I understand the contract I have made, and I am prepared to live within it. To help my family, to help you, to help myself – I am prepared to do anything. But you, sir, cannot ask if I am _happy_. Because you cannot pretend that this arrangement was meant for anything but business,” she adds, every word sharp as a blade in the crisp air. 

There is a sharp sheen to her gaze, but she blinks it away before he can make true note of it.

“Sometimes, I think you a horrible coward,” she says, voice aching. Then, she shakes her head and sets her mouth. “If you will excuse me. I know the way quite well enough,” she says with the dignity of a queen, her spine straight and her chin erect. Clutching her cropped black jacket around her, she turns on her heel and walks away, deeper into the woods. 

Hawke stands there in the clearing, the sun shifting its spread through the dying grass in front of him. He watches his wife until she disappears, and even then watches the empty space for longer. His hands clench into fists and he longs for boxing, longs for fencing, longs for physical violence. Without it, the frustration growing for himself and his wife has nowhere to live but inside, festering and harsh. 

At last, he turns back to the house. He does not see Sienna at dinner. 

In the morning, when he goes to sit in her chamber as her hair is dressed, as per usual, she is already gone. 

*

The engagement of Hawke Snow and Sienna Lauren puzzled a great many in society. She is the niece of a well-respected baron who had run on some hard times due to poor investments with a con man named LeBon; while Walker Lauren is still thought of very highly, his niece was in no way thought of as a match for an Earl, especially one as revered as Hawke Snow. He could trace his descent from Edward III, after all. 

It was a quick courtship of two weeks – not that either Hawke or Sienna called it a courtship. He was brutally honest with her from the beginning, in the front parlor of the Laurens’ townhouse. He admired her wit, her humor, her intelligence, and her grace; he would be a friend to her, if not a husband. He required a partner in his public and administrative life, and thought she would suit well. His mentions of his past were clipped; Theresa’s death, as well as his parents’, were well known at this point. 

In response, she took his proffered hand and accepted, provided he would assist her family in their time of need. That he had no problem promising; Walker’s wife Lara was his second cousin, a dear friend; it is through her that he knew the Laurens well enough to think of Sienna. Though merely twenty years old, she was bright and mature beyond her years, and she, too, knew loss; her father died before she was born, and her mother – well, the story given is that she died of lung fever. Lara once told Hawke in confidence that it was a suicide, and that Sienna found her mother’s body first, bloodless in the bathtub, when she was just twelve years old.

She was a perfect fit, then. Hawke was pleased with all of it. 

What he didn’t expect is that he would end up falling in love with her. 

*

“What the hell did you do?” Riley asks over after-dinner brandies in the richly-decorated study of the Duke of Ormonde.

Hawke scowls at both Riley and Lucas, that same Duke of Ormonde, over the rim of her glass. “Nothing,” he mutters. 

“That’s a damn lie and we all know it,” Lucas counters, sprawled quite lazily in the settee across from Hawke. The room is bright with candlelight, heavy with rich reds and greens. It’s comfortable in its splendor, much like Lucas; Hawke imagines that has much to do with Sascha’s influence since their marriage. Two people more in sync and in love, he’s not sure he’s ever seen. It is a punch to the gut, truly.

“You know the nature of our marriage,” Hawke says after a long moment, staring into the amber liquid in his glass. “I asked the wrong questions.”

“I wouldn’t call it a marriage,” Lucas says slowly. “It’s more of – well – “

He is silent as Hawke glares at him. Riley, from his seat across the settee from Hawke, looks up from his glass. “A business arrangement,” he says flatly. 

Hawke flinches slightly. “Yes,” he bites off. “And she knew that.”

“You’re acting a bloody fool,” Lucas says sharply. “That woman cares for you.”

Swallowing hard, Hawke takes a long sip of his brandy. “She doesn’t.”

“She does. And you care for her,” Riley adds evenly. 

Riley, his oldest friend, has known Hawke since birth. He knew Theresa, was at their wedding, practically moved in with Hawke after she died. And to have him say that- “Stop it,” Hawke says gruffly. 

The three men are silent for a long while, listening to the November winds whistle outside Darkriver Manor. It’s been a strained month between Hawke and Sienna, since the walk on the grounds. She has been polite yet distance, a distinct change from before. Even with the arrangement as it stood, their conversations had always been entertaining, suffused with friendly affection; he liked to tell her of his youthful adventures, and she told him of pranks she played on her uncles and younger siblings, among other things. 

Now, though, everything has changed. She inquires after his health, but little more. Once a week, she sends the bookkeeping to his office through his butler. They have hosted a dinner party for the neighboring families, and she of course was everything he expected of her; sweet and generous and a lovely hostess. It was what he asked for when he proposed in July, after all. 

He misses her perching on his desk, and the fall of her hair, and how sometimes he would come across her asleep in the library at midnight, and have to guide her back to her rooms, her hand soft in his. 

_Bloody hell._

“It’s all right to fall in love with your wife, Hawke,” Lucas says at last, pouring himself another drink from the side drink carrel. “In fact, it’s usually seen as a boon.”

“I can’t,” Hawke says, voice like gravel. “I can’t bear it again.”

“It won’t be the same as before,” Riley says quietly. A solid stalwart steady friend, he is. “Theresa was always delicate. And Sienna is not the same as her.”

“I know,” Hawke mutters, the words ripping from his throat. “I know, and I can’t bear it. I loved Rissa – how can I feel that again for another woman? How can I do that to her memory?”

Lucas clears his throat. “It isn’t the same,” he says quietly. “You’re a different man than the boy Theresa knew. And love changes, and shifts. What you feel for Sienna isn’t the same as what you felt for Theresa, and how she feels for you isn’t how Theresa loved you.”

“She wanted you to be happy, Hawke,” Riley adds, voice placid. “And I don’t think you’re anywhere near it now. When you could be.”

“I don’t – “ Hawke stops, voice strained and choked. “I don’t know if I can be what she wants.”

Lucas shrugs elegantly, the dark gleam of his hair curling at the collar of his black waistcoat. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. But you can be more than a business partner to that woman. I know you care for her.”

“I do,” he retorts, glaring at Lucas. 

“And she’s a beautiful young woman. So why not show her?” Lucas asks, green eyes cat-like in the bright candlelight. 

“Frankly, you don’t know what she wants until you’ve asked her,” Riley adds quietly. 

“I will give you both a hundred pounds to speak of anything else,” Hawke mutters, finishing his brandy with a burn down his throat. 

Lucas laughs, shaking his head. “This is too enjoyable.”

Later, as he and Sienna ride in their carriage towards home, he observes the thin-lipped line of her mouth in profile, and thinks of how he’s missed her conversation, how he’s missed the mornings in her bedchamber, watching Evie twist and pin the heavy mass of her hair. It is a hollow ache in his middle as he remembers the turn of her mouth in laughter, the softness of her skin, the dry press of her lips against his as the vicar pronounced them man and wife. 

He wants her, certainly. He likes her, surely. Whether that is enough, he can’t be certain. 

“I’m sorry,” he says after long moments of silence, with just the wind and gravel under the wheels to keep them company. 

From across the carriage, he can see her startle, and then stiffen. “For what, my lord?” she asks, voice cool. 

He was sure she had a list going somewhere, but best to be specific on his own terms. “For upsetting you on the grounds,” he says quietly. 

She turns to look at him then, her eyes bright in the moonlight. “You didn’t upset me.”

Stubborn, obstinate woman. He grits his teeth and leans forward. “When I married my first wife, I had known her since we were young children. I had loved her for that long. And when she died, I didn’t know how I could bear anything of the like again,” he says bluntly, voice low. 

Eyes fixed on him, Sienna listens in pure silence. Her face is a mask of lines and shadow. 

“I didn’t even feel anything of the like until I saw you, met you,” he says quietly. “It terrified me.”

She inhales audibly. “What are you saying?” 

This is impossible to do so far away from her. He rises and shifts to her side of the carriage, reaching to take her gloved hand in his. 

“I want to start anew,” he says, gaze fixed on hers. “Sienna, you deserve someone who will be a full husband to you, and I want to be that man.”

Her lips part in surprise, eyes wide. “Hawke – “ and his name sounds so good on her lips – “I am content. I know what I agreed to when I married you. You don’t have to do this because you feel sorry for me – “

He stops her mouth with a kiss, reaching up to cup her cheek in his palm. It is utterly different than the placid, cool kiss of their marriage vows. This time, he shuts his eyes and kisses her until her hands are fisted in his heavy winter coat and she is trembling under his touch, her mouth opening for her like a rose blooming in spring. She tastes of spice and the wine from dinner, familiar and strange at the same time; the feel of her lips under his grips his heart tightly and squeezes. Somehow she has wriggled her way into his heart and now he doesn’t want to let her go. 

“I want you,” he breathes against her mouth, opening his eyes. She is staring at him, a flush high on her cheeks but no fear in her eyes. “I want you and I care for you. That is why I am doing this.”

She swallows and tightens her grip on his waistcoat. “You cannot – you cannot begin and then change your mind,” she says, voice thin. 

Stroking her cheek with his thumb, he leans in and kisses her again, his lips soft and warm on hers. “I won’t.”

With that, she wraps tentative arms around his neck and returns his kiss, shy yet enthusiastic. Her tongue slides against his soft and wet, and it’s all he can do not to press her back into the bench cushions and take her there. He pulls her close, almost in his lap, and kisses her until he cannot breathe, until he isn’t sure where she ends and he begins. The soft sounds tremble out of her throat as he finds the sensitive corner of her mouth, his hand firm at the nip of her waist. Her fingers dig into the thick silver-blond hair curling at the nape of his neck and he groans a little, teeth biting at her bottom lip. 

When he cups her breast through the silk of her violet gown, she shudders and arches into the touch. He can feel her nipple pebble through the fabric and he grins in pleasure, his mouth leaving hers to mark its path to her throat. 

“Do you like that?” he asks huskily, kissing the line of her neck wetly. 

“Yes,” she breathes, her fingers taut in his hair. She presses closer as his fingers pluck at her nipple, the heat just rising off of her skin. She is utterly responsive and fantastic in his arms, like holding flame. It’s an intoxicating sensation, completely different from what he felt with Theresa. That reassures him at the last, before all rational thought is pushed to the back of his mind. 

His fingers curl under the neckline of her bodice and tug, freeing her breast to the cool carriage air. A moan ripples from her throat as his palm curves to her bare skin. She is lovely and disheveled in the moonlight passing through the carriage window, breathing rapidly. Her skin, a shade darker than olive, seems to shimmer under his gaze. She is beautiful and ethereal under his hands, his mouth. 

“Sienna – “ he breathes, watching her for a long moment. 

Blinking heavy eyelids, she shifts her hands to cup his face. “You said you wouldn’t stop,” she whispers with a smile, a blush hot on her skin. 

“I don’t think I’ll be able to,” he says honestly. His breeches are already horribly tight. “But you deserve better than a carriage.”

“Even if it’s _your_ carriage?” she teases. 

“The mouth on you,” he mutters, leaning down to kiss that mouth, the wide soft lips so willing and eager. He runs his thumb over her nipple one last time before sliding his hand away, pulling the bodice of her dress up once more. 

“You’ve always said you liked my mouth,” she says, a line furrowing her brow. 

“God help me, I do,” he murmurs, as the carriage begins to slow. The manor is lit for their arrival home. 

She drops her hands from his face and to her lap. He immediately takes one slim hand in his. “May I – “

“Will you come to my room with me?” she asks in a rush, overtaking him. 

Blinking, he smiles a slow warm curve of his mouth. “Yes,” he says, the weight on his shoulders already lighter. 

When the carriage stops, he doesn’t want for the footman to come. He alights immediately and helps her down, keeping his hand in hers. They enter the house and go right upstairs to her rooms. The staff is all but asleep, and Sienna sends Evie to bed with a smile and a wave as they step into the second floor hallway. Soon, they are alone in her chambers, watching each other from across just a few feet. 

Blood pounds in his ears, a roar of sound and desire. She is beautiful and sharp and almost deadly in the candlelight, as she shrugs off her winter cloak and drops it to the floor. 

“My hair,” she says abruptly. “Will you –“

He is there in a moment, his clever fingers searching for the pins holding the beauty of her hair in place. “I love your hair,” he breathes, walking around her. 

She shivers as he plucks out the pins one by one, her hair cascading down her back in thick waves. It feels like silk under his fingertips, warm and alive and everything he imagined but more. The pins drop to the floor with soft metal plinks of sound, ignored by them both. Candlelight brings out the red in her hair, the ruby-dark hue more fiery and vibrant. 

“We could have done this months ago,” she says as she shakes out her hair, staring at him impudently. 

“I’m regretting my idiocy as we speak,” he says dryly, sliding his hands into the full fall of her hair as he brings her for a kiss. 

Her hands fall to his chest, to his waistcoat buttons. It is a rush of his mouth on hers, of laughter and strange trembles as she presses the coat from his shoulders, as he goes for the buttons at the back of her gown. Her lips find his throat, his jaw as he strips her bare and helps her step out of the gown. With no chemise, she is left in just her stockings and drawers, nearly naked and fierce as she watches him. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, stroking a hand over her ribs, the swell of her breast, the curve of her waist and hip. “God, Sienna – “

“And you are very clothed,” she says with a nervous smile, a flush rising all over her skin. 

Smiling in return, he strips himself of everything but his breeches and sweeps her into his arms. He kisses her as he shifts them over to the bed, stretches out over her. Her hips move against his in natural want, his tongue sliding wetly against hers as his hand cups her breast. He wants her mad with sensation and feeling, wants her to enjoy every moment. 

Her hands settle on his chest, dragging through the thick silver-gold chest hair and digging into taut muscle. He groans and kisses along her jaw, her neck, down to her collarbone. He wants to cover her body with his mouth, until he knows every part of her through and through. He has her mind and her heart and her voice, and now he wants her body. The scent of autumn spice lingers on every part of her. As his tongue maps the curve of her breast and the rise of her nipple, she shudders and moans, her hands grasping and clenching at his shoulders. 

“You taste so wonderful,” he murmurs against her skin, against the hollow between her breasts. “God, Sienna – “

“Please –“ she moans, voice thick with want. “ _Please_ – “

He licks and kisses his way along the curve of her stomach, a hand stroking over her thigh between her legs to the slick warm center of her. She is already wet and giving to his fingers as he teases her, and the heady sweet-salt smell of her is a burst of arousal in his veins. “You’re perfect,” he mutters against her navel. “You’re incredible.”

She slides her hands into his hair and grips tightly, all her body aflame with flushed want and need. Her hips stutter unpracticed into his touch and he loves it, loves the excitement and the pleasure lining her face. He wants her senseless, wants her boneless and calling his name. It wasn’t until he kissed her that he realized how much he wanted her, beyond the dreams of her hair and her smooth skin. Here in the moment she is alive and sweet, broken soft sounds coming from her mouth and her hands on his neck, his shoulders, his hair; it grips and fills his heart until he thinks he will pass out from sheer desire. 

“Hawke – oh _god_ ,” she moans as his fingers slide into her, tight and wet, and his mouth licks at her clit. Her thighs shift over his shoulders and pull him in and he is lost, lost in the taste and feel and scent of her. She is different and alive and this – this he has never felt with anyone. It is staggering how much he wants her, how much he loves hearing her moan his name and blaspheme at the top of her lungs. He wants to do this every single night until he dies. 

With all his teasing, it doesn’t take long to bring her to orgasm, a low wrecked moan spilling from her throat as she shudders and arches into his touch. Her fingers scrape at his scalp and tug at his hair as she quivers with pleasure. He strokes her down, kissing his way back up her body. His tongue laves at her tight nipples once, twice, before he kisses the jumping pulse in her throat and then her mouth, letting her taste the remnants of herself on his tongue. She wraps her thighs around his hips and kisses him, her body lax and shuddering under his touch. 

He can’t be gentle – he _can’t_. She is everywhere, surrounding him, her hair a cloud of ruby fire on the pillows. Shaking, he smoothes his hand over her thigh and kisses her cheek, her jaw. His hard length rubs against her thigh, hot and ready. 

“Sienna, I – I –“

“Please,” she whispers, voice hoarse from moments before. “I want you. Hawke, I want – “

Gritting his teeth, he guides himself inside her as slowly as he can. She is wet and tight and ready, muscles quivering around him. Shaking, he props himself up on his elbows above her, the line of his throat taut. He sinks into her fully and she moans, a high-pitched start of a sound that smooths into a sigh. Her arms wrap around his shoulders and she throws her head back, her hips rocking into his. 

He looks at her, flushed and sweat-damp and marked by his mouth and hands, and is undone completely. The speed with which he comes is almost embarrassing, but she only moans and curls into him as he slips out of her and shifts aside. She seems to wants the weight of him, the feel of his skin on hers. He is happy to comply. 

They lay together, their arms wrapped around each other, for long moments, regaining their breaths and shuddering still. She presses her face to his shoulder and he can feel her smile against his skin. 

“What is it?” he asks, voice husky and warm. 

“We should have done that ages ago,” she says with a wry little laugh, smiling. Her eyes shine up at him without regret, and he knows he must make this right somehow.

For now, he pulls the bed linens over them and tucks her against his chest, kissing her brow, her cheek. “We will do it as often as you please.”

She grins and flushes, stroking her hands over his chest. “I do like the sound of that.”

Hawke laughs, full and happy, and kisses her mouth. She responds openly, joyfully, and he is unraveled yet again by how much he cares for her. 

It is utterly strange, and yet not at all. 

*

Sienna begins bringing Hawke the weekly books once more. She reclaims her perch on his desk, and gives her usual updates in her precise, smart tones. 

What he does now is quite different. 

“For you,” he says, offering her a poesy of winter blooms. He has a poesy at the ready for every day of their courtship, and there is a shipment of books on its way from London, all her favorites not already in his library, and all for her. It is the least he can do, other than pour affection onto her now and always. 

Sienna blinks wide eyes at him, a flush darkening her face and throat. “Hawke, you – you don’t need to – “

He takes her hand and pulls her into his lap as he sits in his desk chair, kissing her. “I want to. I was a terrible courter,” he murmurs, hands stroking at the waist of her ice-blue day dress. 

“You were perfectly adequate,” she says with a straight face. 

“Liar,” he laughs, and grins as she tucks the poesy into the sash of her dress. “Shall we walk today again?”

Eyes flashing, she leans into kiss him softly. “I wonder if there isn’t something to entertain us here in your office,” she murmurs, voice thickening. 

He glances at the door. Shut and locked. 

“Clever girl,” he murmurs, his hands traveling down the length of her leg to slip under the hem of her gown. “Clever, smart, lovely Sienna.”

“I am glad you think so,” she breathes, biting at his lip. In the winter sunlight, she is all aglow and afire, and all his. When he kisses her, he only thinks of the future, of possibilities opening up before them. There is no grief, no pain. He may even – 

Well. Love is a step too far. Hawke is content to hold her, to listen to her speak upon accounts and the like, and to help her plan the Christmas celebrations here at Snow Manor. The Duke and Duchess of Ormonde will be coming, as well as the Lauren family and Lord and Lady Kincaid; it will be the first Christmas held at Snow Manor in years, and he is excited for it. 

Without Sienna at his side, he’s sure he would not feel quite so pleased. 

*

As he sleeps with his wife nightly now, there are new discoveries to be had between them both. Sometimes Hawke is overly restless and kicks; and sometimes, as he discovers, Sienna has nightmares. 

The first time is in early December, the first heavy cold setting in. Buried beneath quilts, he at first does not realize what is happening. But her shaking shoulders wake him eventually, and he blinks into the inky darkness of night, watching her shake. 

“Sienna,” he murmurs, hoarse with sleep. “Sienna – “

As his eyes adjust, he sees the faint sheen of tear tracks on her face. It stops him dead; he has never seen her cry before. 

Immediately, he wraps his arms around her and brings her into the circle of his arms, kissing the top of her head. She clutches at him, cold and shaking. 

“Sienna, wake up,” he says, voice firm and warm. “Sienna –“

Her fingers turn to claws against his chest. Trembling, her breaths shift and change. She blinks up at him, eyes wet. 

“Oh,” she breathes, voice hoarse. “I’m sorry – “

“Don’t,” he says, shaking his head. He tucks her even closer and kisses her forehead. “Does this happen often?”

She shakes her head no. There is a strange fragility to her here in the moment. He would never think of Sienna as fragile, given how much she has endured and triumphed over. She is fierce and unbreakable, but here? Here she is a woman in need.

“It’s – it’s always the same, when it happens,” she says quietly, wiping her cheeks. “My mother.”

He bows his head and kisses her softly, strokes a broad warm hand down her back. “It’s all right. You don’t have to say a word,” he says softly.

Shaking her head, she smoothes her hands over his chest, through the springy hair there. “I find her, over and over in the bath,” she says, voice thin. “Blood everywhere, and I can’t – I can’t stop it.”

Laying herself bare, just for him. Wetting his lips, he meets her luminous eyes. 

“I used to dream of Rissa,” he says slowly. “Nightmares, of her dying over and over. Nothing so violent as your mother, but – I understand, Sienna.”

Somehow, her face sets into stronger lines rather than crumpling. “I thought you would. I always thought you would,” she says quietly. 

Chest tight, he kisses her and strokes his hand through her thick hair. The words he has been mulling for weeks linger on his tongue, three words he had never thought to say to anyone again – but not here. Not now, with ghosts in the room with them. 

“You will never be alone with your nightmares again,” he promises her, lips brushing hers. 

Her hands settle on his shoulders and hold on. “I know. Neither will you,” she says softly. 

*

“You look happy,” Sascha says to him during the Christmas dinner. 

It is a full house here at Snow Manor. Baron Lauren, Lara, his younger brother Judd and his new wife Brenna fill the table, as do Sascha and Lucas, and Riley and his wife Mercy, and Andrew. Walker and Lara’s younger children, Marlee and Toby, chatter away gaily with Sienna at the other end of the table. Garlands and wreaths hang from doorframes and walls, the candles lit brightly in every room. It is the most alive he’s seen the house in months, and it is because of Sienna. He knows this much. 

“Don’t pry,” is all he says to Sascha with a sly smile. “It isn’t polite.”

Smiling smugly, she turns to Mercy and whispers in her ear. Hawke meets Sienna’s eyes across the table and smiles, lifting his wine glass to her. She blushes and returns the gesture, her eyes sparkling for him. 

He waits in bed for her with a book and a slowly dimming candle at the end of the evening. She slips in a good half-hour after he retires, already unpinning her hair. 

“Marlee and Toby wanted bedtime stories,” she says with an apologetic smile. 

“They miss you,” he murmurs, watching her with pleasure. 

Sighing, she walks over and turns her back to him. He immediately reaches for the buttons lining the back of her burgundy gown, nearly the same hue as her hair. “I miss them,” she confesses. 

His fingertips graze the groove of her spine as he finishes the last button. “You can invite them to stay whenever you wish,” he says. He likes Toby and Marlee, likes having young people in the house. 

She steps away and out of her gown, reaching for her nightshift. “Really? They wouldn’t be a distraction?” 

“Of course not. They’re family,” he says firmly, thinking of Marlee’s delight in his library, of Toby’s interest in the horses and the grounds. 

Smiling brilliantly, she peels off her stockings and slips into bed with him, leaning up to kiss him. “Thank you,” she says softly, gaze bright. “Though, I do want you to myself for a little while longer.”

“You’ll always have me,” he says, wrapping his arm around her waist. The first months of their marriage seem like a faraway memory. How idiotic he was at the beginning, and how deaf to all those who would try to make him listen. 

She kisses his jaw and settles, sighing. “Happy Christmas, indeed,” she murmurs. “Lucas and Riley are becoming quite impossible with their crowing over our marriage. We need to find a way to quiet them before it becomes insufferable.”

He opens his mouth to laugh, to agree and to scheme, but what falls out instead is: “I love you.”

Every part of her goes very still. For a moment, he doesn’t think she is breathing. His hand is flat on her back, unmoving. 

A flush starts on his throat, rare indeed. 

“Sienna?” he asks after a moment, voice low. 

Abruptly she sits up, eyes and mouth wide. “Don’t – don’t say it if you don’t mean it,” she says fiercely, jabbing a hand into his chest. “Don’t say it because you think I need it. I don’t – I have you and I’m happy, I’m happy – “

“I mean it,” he says, surprising her into silence once more. He cups her face in his hands, thumbs running over the high curve of her cheek. “I love you.”

Breathing shaky, she reaches up to touch his wrists. “Hawke – “

“I do. I love you. You are startling and beautiful and smart and funny and capable, and you are everything a man could want. And I love you,” he says, amazed at the ease with which it pours out of him. 

Fingers trembling, she grasps his wrists and leans into kiss him, her mouth wet and warm and open over hers. Sounds pass between them, vibrations against his lips, but it isn’t until they pull back for breath that he understands them. 

“I wanted – I had hoped – I love you,” she says, words falling out of her mouth on top of one another. “I love you, Hawke.”

Chest nearly bursting, he pulls her on top of him and kisses her soundly, his tongue sliding against hers and his hands searching for bare skin and purchase under her nightshift. He is nearly giddy, the last weights of a strained past lifting away. The happiness is unbearable, and it is because of Sienna. 

All there is left to do is turn her onto the bed and show her how much. 

*

The Earl and Countess of Northington hold a ball in honor of their old friends the Duke and Duchess of Ormonde that February. 

Together, besotted with one another, they dance nearly every dance solely with each other. 

*


End file.
